Domesticating Temperance
by starqueg
Summary: With the weight of human history weighing on her shoulders, can Temperance Brennan ever be anything other than alone?
1. Chapter 1

Title: Domesticating Temperance

Author: Lina

Summary: With the weight of human history weighing on her shoulders, can Temperance Brennan ever be anything other than alone?

Disclaimer: The character of Temperance Brennan belongs to Kathy Reichs. All other character belong to Fox and any other responsible parties.

Notes: This is an attempt to combine two loves of mine, I hope it executes. The narration is a bit confusing, but completely necessary. I also use lyrics for breaks in story. In this case: The Dreaming Tree.

Feedback: More welcome than GHB at a Frat Party.

**Domesticating Temperance**

Chapter One:

_Standing here, the old man said to me_

In 12,000 B.C., the Eastern World would be the first to attempt the most altering force in the history of man. Due to the changing climate brought on by the end of the Glacial Age, the precipitation and changing grassland forced early man to become more sedentary. Because they could no longer rely on their former hunting and gathering skills, early men and women were forced to take a good look around them….and watch. They quickly adapted to staying in one place, by herding the tamer of edible game and planting common edible flora. By 7,000 B.C. this practice would reach as far as the Middle East and Europe due to their own post-Ice Age climate changes. What the small world of hunter gatherers turned farmers would never know, was that by purely trying to feed themselves, they would completely change the world.

When mothers of the time procreated, they would breastfeed until the child was completely independently capable of chewing meat. The longer these women breastfed the longer their cycles would take to reengage and the longer it would take for them to procreate again. The domestication of plants and animals introduced grains into infant and toddler diet. They could chew or gum the grain and drink the milk of aurochs (ancient cows). This process would eventually cause the weaning period to greatly decrease and the amount of times a mother could become pregnant in her "prime" to greatly increase. Over the course of one thousand years, the population of the world would go from the thousands to the millions.

_Long before these crowded streets_

Temperance Brennan sat in the farthest corner of her bathroom she could possibly reach. Her arms were curled around her knees, bent to her chest, left cheek on her knees. She was contemplating early man. This is not an uncommon practice for one such as Tempe, she is an anthropologist after all. She often finds it comforting to contemplate such things when experiencing inner turmoil. It humbles her and makes sense of things that don't normally make sense to her. For example, in this case, early man's systematic conquering of the natural world and the population frenzy that ensues is like flipping a coin and finding that both sides are completely different from on another yet exist simultaneously on that coin. Tempe's life is very similar.

On the 12,000 B.C. side of the coin she lives all alone. She grew into adulthood all alone. She eats breakfast all alone, she studies bones all alone. She drifts from one solitary activity to the next because she no longer knows how to do anything but. Her embarrassingly short list of personal relationships have never lasted because no one else knew how to be alone quite like Tempe. She knew she lacked tact and had an over abundance of smarts and that, generally, irritated people. She hated that she irritated people, but because she'd been solitary for so long, she just couldn't bring her self to care enough to change. It was so less complicated when no one cared.

_"Come on Bones, one more drink isn't gonna hurt you."_

She gasped, her back straightened and she shook her head. She couldn't think about this. What was she thinking about? Oh yes. The coin.

On the 6,000 B.C. side of the coin she worked at the Jeffersonian in the Medico-Legal Lab with three extremely competent co-workers and one FBI agent. She was surrounded by people, strange people, all the time. She wasn't alone. She was a mentor, a friend, a….. partner. There people cared about what she thought, what she did. Her quirks were equaled and surpassed by those around her. If it wasn't Angela trying to take her dancing on a Friday night, it was Zach pleading with puppy-dog eyes for her approval. Hodgins spouting off torture devices and methods while Dr. Goodman's deep narration told them of ancient burial grounds and fundraisers. Then there was Seely Booth, there to whisk her away on criminal filled adventures. His sarcastic barbs a match for her stubborn intelligent snobbery.

_"Jesus, Bones. I need to find my keys, where the hell are my keys?"_

_"Oh God, Booth. I don't know, just find them quickly, or we'll never make it."_

_"I'm trying. Oh god, I'm trying. It would help if we stopped."_

_"Don't want to stop…."_

She rubbed her eyes. Trying to banish the rush of images. They wouldn't cease, they hadn't ceased at all. She checked her watch. How much time had passed. She had no idea. Time was a concept that she could comprehend scientifically, but when she had to rely on it pass it became completely foreign to her. She was used to days passing while she hunched over a glorified autopsy table. The time since _it_ had happened seemed both an eternity and a blink of an eye ago. Certainly not enough time for this to have happened. Or maybe too much time. In the grand scheme of things this was nothing . A blip. The world's population had doubled a thousand times in a thousand years because someone had tied a cow to a post. Now she was going to increase the population because he tied her self to someone else's post. Dear Lord, now she was just getting vulgar.

_His elbows locked, she was so aware of him. How he towered over her. He wore a look of wide eyed wonderment. She knew she looked the same. His palms rested on both sides of her head next to her much smaller hands completely fisted. He had a question in his eyes._

"Stop. Stop. Stopstopstop." She scrunched her eyes so tight, meaningless tears popped from between dry lids.

She opened her eyes and they immediately fell to the edge of her sink. The answer she already knew staring her in the face. She just stared and stared. Her knees contracted further into her chest, but the arms holding them were now shaking. No she was shaking. All of her. Her breath came out in short gasps.

This was it. The was where everything changed. She could mark all of the times where everything changed in her life with a red felt tip and they would line up like the eyes of a snake. Yes, all two marks. What was she thinking? What were her parents thinking?

"Oh, God."

_"Oh, God. Tempe." The words were mumbled against the bare flesh where her arm met her shoulder. He chanted the name over and over, in syncopation with the movement of his hips against hers. It had never been like this before. She knew the minute her back had hit cotton sheet that she had sobered completely. It had never once crossed her mind that this was a mistake._

So this was what a mistake felt like. She'd never really made one in her life. Especially not of this magnitude. All of the faces from the coin's B-side swam in front of her face, mocking her. They told her she wasn't as smart as she looked, they told her she wasn't good enough. She shook her head against the images. All the images. She had never felt stupid before either. Even when people gave her funny looks or questioned what the hell she was talking about, she never felt stupid, she felt smart. Now, however she felt stupid. Actually she felt a little sick.

_The sun streamed through the slats in the blinds, promising a new day. That's what woke her, the warmth of the sun…. and the coolness of the sheets. Sheets on bare skin. She never slept nude. That was her first coherent thought. The second was that this was not her room. No cat at the end of the bed, no large collection of books to greet her. There was however an armed forces plaque on the wall. That sunk in. She turned slowly to view a gloriously wide expanse of tanned back. That shot her upright. She forgot any modesty and got to her feet. She looked frantically around the room and spotted the satin and lace amidst the heather gray soft cotton of boxer briefs. Oh goodness. She had to go. She had to get out. She grabbed the scraps of necessary underclothing and left the room, knowing the rest of her clothing would not be there. Every time she would close her eyes for the next two months she would see the image permanently burned there. Seely Booth's bronze back striped with the glowing sun and framed by crisp white bed sheets._

She opened her eyes to relieve them of the familiar image and stared once again at the strip of plastic with the glaring blue end and knew that the coin she had so laughingly compared to her life just got thrown out the window. She wasn't alone. She would never be alone again. For the rest of her life she would have some one else to take care of.

She stood with trembling hands and reached past the life-altering object to grab her cellular phone from her discarded purse. She barely was able to find the number without dropping the phone. She did find it and after a deep breath pressed the necessary button to connect. One ring. Two.

"Angela?"

_Here stood my Dreaming Tree_

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tbc?


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Domesticating Temperance

Author: Lina

Summary: With the weight of human history weighing on her shoulders, can Temperance Brennan ever be anything other than alone?

Disclaimer: The character of Temperance Brennan belongs to Kathy Reichs. All other character belong to Fox and any other responsible parties.

Notes: The Tollund Man is an unbelievable sight to behold, I suggest everyone whose interested should take a look: http/home6.inet.tele.dk/hjortspr/Tollundmand.htm. Once again, the song is The Dreaming Tree.

Acknowledgements. This one's for Sorrowful Jones, and all of us directionless fools out there. Dissertation or not, SJ, you did this.

_Below it he would sit, for hours at a time_

Fifty years ago Viggo and Emil Hoejgarrd took a walk in their backyard and stumbled upon one of the most amazing finds in archaeological history. The Tollund Man, aptly named for the region in Denmark where he was found, brags an age of 2,400 years. He was found perfectly preserved due to an ancient peat bog in the area. He is the most intact "mummy" ever found in the world. He still possesses hair on his head, chin and upper lip. He still has eyelashes. The wrinkles on his face are so well preserved it's incredibly easy to assign him an expression, a smile, a personality. As it is, he just looks like he is sleeping the peaceful slumber one could only get from a three millennia long nap.

The Tollund Man lived in the early Iron Age, closely approaching the Bronze. He lived during a time of magnificent shipbuilding. The type of ships referred to as Hjortsprings, were plank-built canoes. The boat is manned by twenty-four persons, weighs 1100 pounds with passengers, and is roughly 8 feet long. Hjortsprings were found in a similar peat bog on an island in Denmark. With it were hundreds of tools still perfectly intact. The Hjortsprings live on in concept, restoration, and renewal. The Tollund Man simply lives on.

_Now progress takes away, what forever took to find_

It was an unusually quiet night at the Jeffersonian. Usually, even on a Sunday, staff members would be identifying bones, 'squinting' into microscopes, and just generally milling around. Tonight, however, Temperance Brennan seemed to be the only person possessing a PHD in the building. The lights of the lab were still on, but the quiet was deafening. This actually suited Dr. Brennan just fine, as her thoughts were screaming loud enough.

She had finally made the call. The fact that it was Sunday seemed to reinforce the fact that this was a personal call, not one iota of business to be found. He would know that this was a personal call and he would probably be aware that there hadn't been a personal call since their last one got a little _too_ personal. The tension of her whole body was the only visible proof of her inner turmoil. The queasiness in her stomach was due to something else entirely. She scribbled furious notes around papers on her desk. She had decided the first thing she needed to do to take her mind off of her impending doom, was to work on her novel. For the first time in her life, fiction was easier than fact.

_"Bren? Bren, are you here? The door was unlocked so I just came on in. You sounded really weird on the phone. Sweetie, are you here?….. Oh, hon."_

It was one of the most difficult conversations that Temperance had ever had in her entire life. Angela had been wonderful. She had reassured her that she could do what she was about to do. Perhaps rehashing the conversation she had with her would make the upcoming one all that much easier. Oh, who was she kidding? Nothing was going to make this easier.

_Angela took tentative steps into the bathroom. In the entirety of her bizarre friendship with the anthropologist, she had never seen anything quite like this. It was a study in human sorrow, confusion and despair. Brennan was tucked into the corner of her bathroom, unseeing eyes focused on the sink counter, soundless tears dripping on her cheeks. Angela followed the gaze and literally felt every last breath leave her._

_"Oh, holy shit." Gravity became too much of an overwhelming force, and she sank to floor with her friend. The whispered epithet brought the other woman's attention into the present. The torment in Brennan's eyes brought so many questions into the forefront. Angela knew, though, that asking them now would be the worst idea she'd had since that drunken Fiji wedding. The thoughts kept on coming. Brennan would have told her if she was seeing someone, right? She couldn't count how many times Bren had told her that she was never going to have children. Was she going to quit? They were completely random, but Angela had no idea what to say at this point. _

_"What am I going to do, Angela?"_

Tempe was starting to jot down a new thought onto a new paper when she heard the distinct patterned clip of highly polished, expensive dress shoes on the marble floor. They were getting louder. This was it. Even crying onto the tile of her bathroom wouldn't ever make this as real as it is now. She was determined to finish her notes before his presence invaded her space, broke her bubble. She increased the fierceness of her writing until the footsteps stopped. She stopped writing, paused and slowly raised her head.

_"Oh, hon, I have no earthly idea." Angela blew out a harsh breath. "First, I'm going to need some idea of what's going on."_

_Finally their eyes connected. Brennan thought of all of the possible things that she could say. All of the possible explanations. Occam's Razor: 'one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything'._

_"I'm pregnant." Angela's snort made Brennan frown._

_"Yeah, I caught that, sweetie. How'd you get that way?" When Brennan opened her mouth, Angela beat her to the punch. "Please, please! Don't give me the anthropological view of the birds and the bees. Just tell me who, when…why? Do I want to know why?"_

_This was something that the good doctor could do. State the facts, distance herself from all of the emotional crap. Talk to Angela like she would in the middle of a case. Then she realized that admitting all of things out loud would make the unfathomable situation a stark reality and she lost her confidence._

_"Booth. It was Booth." She whispered in confession."_

Now he stood in front of her, looking disarmingly casual in a v-neck sweater, jeans and (still, perfectly polished and expensive) loafers. She supposed she shouldn't cast stones as she'd opted for the sweat pants and sweater jacket combo.

"Well, well, well Bones. You called, I came a-runnin'. Guessing by your stunning attire, I assume this isn't work related. What gives?" His teasing grin almost overcame the guarded look in his eyes.

She was surprised at how long she realized it'd been since she honestly got a good look at the man. He seemed weary, despite his clean-cut appearance. He had bags under his eyes , his pale face looked taught and tired. She finally understood that this had affected him as well. This distance between them was not just of her making, she was not the only one suffering in silence.

"Have a seat, Booth." She drew her knees up into the chair, into the protective stance she'd perfected since that night in her bathroom.

He approached tentatively. He was trying to read her, she could tell. He looked for answers with a detective's eye, reading body language. She was pretty sure he wasn't going to figure it out just by looking at her. She felt increasingly nauseous at the thought. He couldn't, could he? As an anthropologist she knew that when pregnant, the female body begins to take on the shape of an expectant mother. As a female, she knew her body was exhibiting some of these changes. She had no idea if he could tell or not. She was beginning to realize just how little she actually knew this man.

_"Your, kidding……oh, God. You aren't kidding." Angela looked very much like a rendition of "The Scream", mouth in an 'o', hand against cheek. _

_"Why would I joke about this, Ang?"_

_"It wasn't literal, Bren. When did this happen, are you guys dating? No, I can't see you guys dating. I mean, there some obvious chemistry there, but I never thought either of you would act on it. I can't believe you acted on it. If this was a different situation, I think I'd be a little proud of you."_

_Brennan tried to absorb everything Angela was saying, but with the previous discovery of her current situation, it all seemed a bit overwhelming. Her breathing became labored and she felt her body start shaking again. Tears released and followed the previous tracks on her wet cheeks._

_"Oh, no. Bren, I'm sorry. I'm an insensitive ass." Angela scooted closer to her friend and wrapped a loose arm around the shaking woman. "You just caught me off guard, thus the babbling, you know?"_

_Brennan's breathing evened out and the trembling quieted. _

_"It's okay, Ang. I've been doing that consistently since I came in here." She whispered in a husky tone. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. This wasn't supposed to happen. This was not the plan."_

_"There was a plan?" Brennan gave her a look._

_"To never have children. To never be in this situation, but here I am and I have no idea what to do."_

_"You're going to tell him, right?" Angela looked at her with open-eyed curiosity._

_"Of course. Why wouldn't I?" The pure look of innocence on answered a lot of Angela's questions. She found herself truly shocked. The quiet whispered question was as surprising to both women._

_"So your going to keep it?….. Why?"_

_"Does it really matter?"_

_"No. It doesn't"_

_There was a pause while both women let the idea sink in. Brennan was going to be a mother. Angela almost smiled. Brennan didn't have a clue about what she was getting herself into. Angela knew that the privilege of being her friend's confidante was going to throw her right in the middle of the inevitable upheaval. _

_"Well, you and Booth certainly have a dynamic," Angela continued "He's already a decent father, and he'll be able to tell you a lot of things that you don't know-"_

_"Which is everything."_

_"I think you know more than you think. I think you know exactly how you're going to tell him. It's just buried deep and you'll figure it out when you need to."_

"I… um… I--hmm. Well I….um." Bones blew out an aggravated huff. She rolled her eyes and tried to tuck her knees closer to her stomach, which was starting to protest the added agonies of her nervous system. Apparently Angela was very wrong.

Booth finally took a seat.

"While your eloquence astounds me-" Bones cut him off with a raised hand.

"Do you remember what I told you about sarcasm in the workplace? It's not helping me any in this situation either." At Booth's raised eyebrow, Bones knew that it was finally sinking in that this was an entirely personal interaction.

"What's going on, Bones. I know things haven't been exactly….easy for us over the past couple of months, but you can tell me anything. You should know that." The surprise in Bones' eyes quickly caught his attention. He knew this was the first time either of them came close to acknowledging what had happened between them. He lowered his voice. "Is that what this is about, Bones? Is it about that night?"

Brennan took a shuddering breath. The knots in her stomach were increasing exponentially.

"Yes. Sort of. Wow, I really don't know how to say what it is I need to say. I've never felt like this before. Obviously." So very wrong, Angela, so very wrong.

"I think I figured out what you needed to say when you left that morning, Bones. You really don't need to-- Bones? Are you alright, you look…?" Before Booth could tell her what she looked like, her stomach hit a breaking point. She burst from her chair to sprint to the lab's facilities. She barely made it into the stall in the bathroom before retching out the entire content of her stomach.

Breathing hard, tears running down her face unchecked, she sat against the cold metal wall of the stall and let the chill seep into her warmed skin.

_"Do you know about the Tollund Man, Ang?" Brennan asked quietly._

_"The peat bog guy? Yeah, I think it was talked about in a first year anthropology class I took, the only one, by the way. I don't think I'll ever forget that picture of him, it really sticks with you doesn't it?" Angela found herself very curious about where Brennan was going with this, normally she rolled her eyes at the doctor's thought processes, but this was an entirely different animal._

_"He was nearly three thousand years old and the exact lines of his face and the texture of his skin, they live on. He is, literally, a face of history in its purest form. He immortalized himself by accident, just was buried in the right place at the right time. So many people strive for immortality through fame or infamy, artistry or forward thinking. I'm just as guilty, I don't just write books for my fans you know, I write them for me. There is a thrill seeing your name in print, knowing it will be there, in physical form, for a very long time._

_"Yeah, I get that."_

_"But this, Angela. Having a child. That's living forever."_

_"You're not going to come out dancing with me again, are you?"_

She knew she had to go back out there or else she'd never get through this, never say what she needed to. She stood on shaky legs and walked to the sink. She splashed water on her face and grabbed for a paper towel. She slowly dried her hands and face and disposed of the wet cloth. She walked over to the door took a deep breath and opened. All plans to return to her office were nixed when she saw Booth sitting against the wall opposite to the bathroom head in his hands. Upon hearing her exit, he raised his head and stared at her directly.

"I think we should probably go to the vending machines and get you some Sprite. While we do that you are going to tell me _exactly _what it was you needed to talk to me about."

At that moment she knew, she wasn't going to tell him anything. She didn't need to, he already knew.

_Now he's falling hard, he feels the falling dark_

_How he longs to be, beneath his dreaming tree_

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A/N: Thanks to all for the reviews, they let me know if I should continue. wink


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